The following abbreviations and terms are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description of the present disclosure.
3GPP 3rd-Generation Partnership Project
ACK Acknowledge
AGCH Access Grant Channel
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
BLER Block Error Rate
BSS Base Station Subsystem
CC Coverage Class
EC Extended Coverage
eDRX Extended Discontinuous Receive Cycle
EC-AGCH Extended Coverage Access Grant Channel
EC-PCH Extended Coverage Paging Channel
DSP Digital Signal Processor
EDGE Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution
EGPRS Enhanced General Packet Radio Service
FAI Final Acknowledge Indicator
FDA Flexible Downlink Allocation
FN Frame Number
FUA Fixed Uplink Allocation
GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
GERAN GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network
GPRS General Packet Radio Service
HARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request
IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity
IoT Internet of Things
LLC Logical Link Control
LTE Long-Term Evolution
MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme
MS Mobile Station
MTC Machine Type Communications
PCH Paging Channel
PDN Packet Data Network
PDTCH Packet Data Traffic Channel
PDU Protocol Data Unit
RACH Random Access Channel
RAN Radio Access Network
RAI Routing Area Identity
RAU Routing Area Update
RLC Radio Link Control
RRBP Relative Reserved Block Period
SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node
TDMA Time Division Multiple Access
TFI Temporary Flow Identity
TS Time Slot
TSC Training Sequence Code
TSG Technical Specifications Group
UE User Equipment
USF Uplink State Flag
WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
Coverage Class: At any point in time a device belongs to a specific uplink/downlink coverage class that corresponds to either the legacy radio interface performance attributes that serve as the reference coverage for legacy cell planning (e.g., a Block Error Rate of 10% after a single radio block transmission on the PDTCH) or a range of degraded radio interface performance attributes compared to the reference coverage (e.g., up to 20 dB less than the reference coverage).Coverage class determines the total number of blind transmissions to be used when transmitting/receiving radio blocks. An uplink/downlink coverage class applicable at any point in time can differ between different logical channels. Upon initiating a system access a device determines the uplink/downlink coverage class applicable to the RACH/AGCH based on estimating the number of blind transmissions of a radio block needed by the BSS receiver/device receiver to experience a BLER (block error rate) of approximately 10%. The BSS determines the uplink/downlink coverage class to be used by a device on the device's assigned packet channel resources based on estimating the number of blind transmissions of a radio block needed to satisfy a target BLER and considering the number of HARQ retransmissions (of a radio block) that will, on average, be required for successful reception of a radio block using that target BLER. Note: a device operating with radio interface performance attributes corresponding to the reference coverage is considered to be in the best coverage class (i.e., coverage class 1) and therefore does not make blind transmissions.eDRX cycle: eDiscontinuous reception (eDRX) is a process of a wireless device disabling its ability to receive when it does not expect to receive incoming messages and enabling its ability to receive during a period of reachability when it anticipates the possibility of message reception. For eDRX to operate, the network coordinates with the wireless device regarding when instances of reachability are to occur. The wireless device will therefore wake-up and enable message reception only during pre-scheduled periods of reachability. This process reduces the power consumption which extends the battery life of the wireless device and is sometimes called (deep) sleep mode.Nominal Paging Group: The specific set of EC-PCH blocks a device monitors once per eDRX cycle. The device determines this specific set of EC-PCH blocks using an algorithm that takes into account its IMSI, its eDRX cycle length and its downlink coverage class.As discussed in the 3GPP TSG-GERAN Meeting #63 Tdoc GP-140624, entitled “Cellular IoT-PDCH UL Resource Management,” dated Aug. 25-29, 2014 (the contents of which are hereby incorporated herein for all purposes), the GSM Evolution (now referred to as EC-GSM) will use the concept of pre-allocating radio blocks on uplink (UL) EC-Packet Data Traffic Channel (PDTCH) resources in the interest of avoiding Uplink Status Flag (USF) based uplink transmissions for wireless devices operating in extended coverage, and to optimize the energy consumption in the wireless device when in packet transfer mode. The present disclosure describes various ways for improving the allocation of radio resources in wireless communications to address a need associated with the concept of pre-allocating radio blocks or radio resources on the UL EC-PDTCH. In addition, the present disclosure describes various ways for improving the allocation of radio resources in wireless communication to address a need associated with the concept of pre-allocating radio blocks or radio resources on the DL EC-PDTCH.